"In my view...intrinsically, happiness is the only thing that is of value. Other things may have instrumental value. For example, we suffer now to achieve something, we study to pass the exam and we suffer during the process. But it helps you to learn something or to get your degree and then you can do something better. So it contributes to future welfare, which again is happiness. So something may be of instrumental value, that is instrumental to achieve something else of value. Ultimately, only happiness is of value. And the fact that happiness is of value, everyone knows. Because everyone enjoy the nice feeling of being happy...That’s my main moral philosophical stance."
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Yew-Kwang Ng, Prof Yew-Kwang Ng on ethics and how to create a much happier world, 80,000 Hours (2018)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yew-Kwang_Ng
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Yew-Kwang Ng
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